Re: Owning URIs (Was: Yet Another LOD cloud browser)

Hi,
concerning the discussion about ownership of URIs: Ownership of URLs has initiated a very successful world wide task sharing. We need also world wide task sharing in the definition of a vocabulary for the semantic web. 

It should be clear that a (small) group of developers has not the working capacity to define a vocabulary which covers the bandwidth of human life. 
 
((Consider e.g. the multitude of different kinds of numeric data (you know, my initial motivation http://www.orthuber.com/wpa.htm ), think also about the multitude of special requirements; e.g. in medicine (http://www.hl7.org/ ). ))
 
Therefore it would be natural and attractive to develop a concept, how *all* domain name owners can define vocables within the RDFa concept.  This is possible without overlapping if the domain name is included in the URI which marks the property or feature, and it could exist simultaneously with current vocabularies.
 
((We can say, that the owner of the domain name also "owns" the URI - because he can define it. There is the possibility that the same thing gets many names (URIs). We could reduce this if definitions are associated with keywords and there is the possibility to search for keywords with the recommendation to define only a new URI if the search for keywords has not disclosed an already existing definition. If nevertheless there are many names for the same thing, we could give the recommendation that the most frequent URI resp. name is used by webmasters. So we get concentration to one name again.))
 
An initial proposal: Let dn denote some domain name and let the tag "pattern" mark an object which is defined by a domain name owner. The object is simply a sequence of items in the form:
 
<pattern:dn/xxx> 
  <li 1>item 1</li>
  <li 2>item 2</li>
...
  <li n>item n</li>
</pattern>
 
The sequence is defined in the domain dn.   An example illustrates things most quickly. Let dn1, dn2 denote domain names, e.g. dn1 of a manufacturer of bikes, and dn2 of an official institution. 
 
<pattern:dn1/handlebar> 
  <li 1> http://www.dn1-manufacturer-bar-end</li>
  <li 2>order-number-bar-end</li>
  <li 3>http://www.dn1-manufacturer-bar</li>
  <li 4>order-number-bar</li>
  <li 5>
    <pattern:dn2/length> 
       <li 1>0.52</li>
    </pattern> 
  </li>
</pattern>
 
In this case the owner of domain name dn1 provides in the subdirectory http://www.dn1/pat/, more exactly in http://www.dn1/pat/handlebar is a file with predefined name which points to all necessary information, also to templates in all frequent languages which make the content of patterns with this name human readable. Similar the owner of dn2 defines the pattern dn2/length. The core of the English template of pattern dn1/handlebar may be
 
Manufacturer of bar: <item 3>
Order number of bar: <item 4>
Manufacturer of bar end: <item 1>
Order number of bar end: <item 2>
Bar dimension: <item 5>
 
The core of the English template of pattern dn2/length may be
 
Length <item 1> meter
 
Insertion of the above pattern into these templates yields:
 
Manufacturer of bar: http://www.dn1-manufacturer-bar
Order number of bar: order-number-bar
Manufacturer of bar end: http://www.dn1-manufacturer-bar-end
Order number of bar end: order-number-bar-end
Bar dimension: Length 0.52 meter
 
So it is not necessary that the software knows a huge vocabulary, the necessary information is stored in the defining domains. Templates can be used to make definitions of all domain name owners human readable in all languages (also sophisticated graphic templates are possible) . Additionally similarity search of the numeric part ("Length") is possible.
Up to now there is some freedom in the concrete design.

Is there is interest in this?

Wolfgang

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Tim Berners-Lee 
  To: David Huynh 
  Cc: Sherman Monroe ; Linked Data community ; semantic-web@w3.org 
  Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 9:31 AM
  Subject: Owning URIs (Was: Yet Another LOD cloud browser)


  David, 


  On 2009-05 -18, at 07:20, David Huynh wrote:


    Sherman Monroe wrote:
    [...] For example, when I search for Microsoft on Google, the first result not only IS what I want, but also LOOKs like what I want. I can make the decision to click on it within maybe 1 or 2 seconds. The URL "www.microsoft.com" in that search result is perhaps the most convincing element, as I know only *the* Microsoft can possibly own that domain. (This will be a challenge for any SW search engine, because no-one can own any URI, and so, seeing a URI alone means pretty much nothing. That's one of the main differences between URL and URI, which is usually swept under the rug.) 



  I had to pick up in "no-one can own any URI".


  First of all, terms:  URL is not really a term in the architecture of the WWW.  I find it best to use "URI".  "URL" does occur in the browser UI, but in the specs it has been used for various things, often a derogatory term for a URI which might change. How are you using it here? To mean the URI of a web page?
  To mean an " http:"  URI?  If not, then why are you dealing with URIs which are not HTTP URIs (tch, tch! :-)?  If so, then why don't you think these HTTP URIs in the semantic web are owned? 


  Why can't the semantic web track 'whois' information of domain ownership, and maybe even SLL certificate information, of sites and be aware of the social relationships, and use them intelligently? (perhaps more safely than a human who will be confused by http://www.microsoft.com.1000ripyouoff.crime/ ?) .  It is true that the delegation of information within a site is not typically made explicit (though it could be with site metadata).  But there is in general a system of ownership of URIs, it seems to me, and it is important on the SW in the social processes by which different groups get to define what different terms mean.  So "no-one can own any URI" set off a red flag for me.


  Tim